National Bureau of Economic Research

Concern about children’s welfare is often cited as a reason for strong tenant protection laws. In The Effects of Eviction on Children (NBER Working Paper 33659), Robert Collinson, Deniz Dutz, John Eric Humphries, Nicholas S. Mader, Daniel Tannenbaum, and Winnie van Dijk provide new evidence on the causal impact of evictions...

N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University, presented the 2025 Martin Feldstein Lecture on "The Fiscal Future," examining the trajectory of US government debt—which is projected to reach 156 percent of GDP by 2055. He analyzed five possible outcomes to address this fiscal path: extraordinary economic growth, government default, large-scale money creation, substantial spending cuts, and large tax increases, concluding that significant tax increases, potentially including a value-added tax, represent the most likely solution. The Feldstein Lecture Series was launched in 2009 to celebrate the late Martin Feldstein's three decades of transformative leadership of the NBER.

In both developed and developing countries, annual spending on public procurement averages about 12 percent of national GDP. The efficiency of public procurement can have a long-run impact on the growth and productivity of countries. A major challenge in achieving efficiency, however, is the possibility of collusion among suppliers. Collusive agreements increase prices, leading to wasted tax dollars or, in the case of developing countries, wasted foreign aid. These agreements often shield inefficient firms from competition, diverting resource allocation to low-performing sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the transparency requirements inherent to public procurement, such as public databases of past tenders and associated bids, can facilitate the coordination and enforcement of collusive...

Lower-income adults in the US are more likely to lack health insurance and to suffer worse health, a correlation that raises the long-standing question of whether health insurance affects health. In Saved by Medicaid: New Evidence on Health Insurance and Mortality from the Universe of Low-Income Adults (NBER Working Paper 33719), Angela Wyse and Bruce D. Meyer present new evidence on this question by evaluating the consequences of recent Medicaid expansions. 

To study the impact of Medicaid on mortality, the researchers exploit variation in the state-level adoption and timing of expansions of Medicaid eligibility to childless, nondisabled, non-elderly adults. Most, but…

The surge in remote work in recent years has transformed labor markets, with potentially important implications for the interaction between workplace flexibility and entrepreneurship. In Hustling from Home? Work from Home Flexibility and Entrepreneurial Entry (NBER Working Paper 33237), John M. Barrios, Yael Hochberg, and Hanyi (Livia) Yi explore whether the increased flexibility provided by work-from-home (WFH) arrangements has affected entrepreneurial decisions. They focus on the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment and analyze how the sudden shift to remote work affected new business creation. Guided…